Simon Newcomb
Simon Newcomb
Simon Newcombwas a Canadian-American astronomer, applied mathematician and autodidactic polymath, who was Professor of Mathematics in the U.S. Navy and at Johns Hopkins...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionMathematician
Date of Birth12 March 1835
CountryCanada
psychology way fields
My first undertaking in the way of scientific experiment was in the field of economics and psychology.
reading aunt years
I was taught the alphabet by my aunts before I was four years old, and I was reading the Bible in class and beginning geography when I was six.
years annapolis naval
A few years later the Naval Academy was founded at Annapolis, and a similar course was pursued to provide it with a corps of instructors.
years names two
Until I was four years old I lived in the house of my paternal grandfather, about two miles from the pretty little village of Wallace, at the mouth of the river of that name.
prayer men knives
When about fifteen I once made a great scandal by taking out my knife in prayer meeting and assaulting a young man who, while I was kneeling down during the prayer, stood above me and squeezed my neck.
teacher school training
What we now call school training, the pursuit of fixed studies at stated hours under the constant guidance of a teacher, I could scarcely be said to have enjoyed.
way study mathematics
I finally reached the conclusion that mathematics was the study I was best fitted to follow, though I did not clearly see in what way I should turn the subject to account.
airplane bird speed
Quite likely the twentieth century is destined to see the natural forces which will enable us to fly from continent to continent with a speed far exceeding that of a bird.
airplane past men
The mathematician of to-day admits that he can neither square the circle, duplicate the cube or trisect the angle. May not our mechanicians, in like manner, be ultimately forced to admit that aerial flight is one of that great class of problems with which men can never cope... I do not claim that this is a necessary conclusion from any past experience. But I do think that success must await progress of a different kind from that of invention.
new-year memorial-day adversity
As years passed away I have formed the habit of looking back upon that former self as upon another person, the remembrance of whose emotions has been a solace in adversity and added zest to the enjoyment of prosperity.
limits astronomy knows
We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy.
knowledge simple discovery
One hardly knows where, in the history of science, to look for an important movement that had its effective start in so pure and simple an accident as that which led to the building of the great Washington telescope, and went on to the discovery of the satellites of Mars.
educational cutting men
If my impressions are correct, our educational planing mill cuts down all the knots of genius, and reduces the best of the men who go through it to much the same standard.
airplane space machines
Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.